


solitude with options

by otherwords



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 890fifth, 890fifth Round Fifteen Challenge: Endgame, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwords/pseuds/otherwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive.</em>
</p><p>Or, Tony is lonely and Steve keeps him company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	solitude with options

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the round fifteen challenge from [890fifth](http://890fifth.tumblr.com). A lot of great work has come out of the 890fifth challenges and I'm so happy to be a part of the last one.
> 
> The quote in the summary is from Mercedes Lackey and was one of the [prompts](http://890fifth.tumblr.com/post/122806432470) for round fifteen.

The mission was a fucking disaster and everyone agrees on that.

Natasha is sitting in the back of the jet, nursing a badly bruised hip and hunched into the seat next to Clint. She snaps that she's fine if anyone asks her, so no one does. Clint, for his part, isn't much better. One eye is swollen shut, but at least his lip has mostly stopped bleeding.

Bruce is sacked out on the bench across from Natasha and Clint, breathing a little too shallow, but mostly stable.

Thor is still off-world and if anyone thought he could have made a difference in the fight, they might be bitter, but no one does.

Sam's flying the jet, one shoulder burned and bandaged after his left wing got blown off. Steve is beside him, slumped and clutching a gut wound.

Tony's got a bench to himself, looking over a blackened chunk of metal that's supposed to be part of his right gauntlet. The armour took a fucking beating. Tony is honestly surprised he still has both arms. He is honestly surprised he still has five teammates.

“Well, that was an adventure!” he says into the stillness of the jet cabin, because of course he does. No one laughs.

*

Avengers Tower, whatever meaning you want to ascribe to it, whether it's symbolism about ego or some twisted interpretation of what a home should be like, is, if nothing else, familiar, and that counts for a lot at the end of a fucking shit day.

Everyone disperses when they get back, and it's not a surprise. I mean, sure, would Tony _enjoy_ some company after his life flashed before his eyes a scant two hours ago? Who wouldn't? (Well, Natasha wouldn't, and that's the problem.)

But he's fine. Tony is fine. Tony's got a suit of armour which is exactly why he doesn't need pity or comfort or any of the other lesser human emotions that Pepper is always talking about (conveniently also when she brings up words like _therapy_ and _for your own good_ and _I care about you_ , so who knows what that means).

Sure, he's probably not going to sleep tonight, but that's why science invented coffee. One of the best mathematicians in human history was consistently jacked on coke while he was proving ground-breaking theorems, so if Tony's a little wound on caffeine, whatever, small price to pay for scientific genius. Scientific survival. Semantics. Whatever.

He's fine, is the point.

“JARVIS, buddy, check on the kids,” he says, rifling through the fridge for something to — well, something to what? Is he hungry? He pauses. Nope. Not hungry. Close the fridge, Tony. Quit fidgeting. “And coffee,” he adds.

“Already brewed, sir,” replies JARVIS' voice, and Tony could kiss — coffee? Is that feasible?

“That's why you're my favourite, J,” Tony says, grabbing one of the Stark Industries mugs that he's partial to, because they manage to combine his two favourite things — a vessel for alcohol or coffee and a little bit of Stark adulation.

He pours a cup and listen to JARVIS reel off statistics about the rest of the team (... _Agent Romanov is experiencing serious hem_ _a_ _toma on her right side ..._ “You can just call her Natasha, J.” ... _o_ _f course, sir. With appropriate rest, Agent Romanov will recover. Agent Barton is icing his left eye. Non-serious injuries ..._ “Really? His face looked like a fucking car accident. That's good.” ... _t_ _he Captain's wound is healing_ _well_ _on its own, though I advised him to apply some kind of antiseptic_ _and ensure his internal organs are in order ..._ “God, you're so metal, JARVIS.” ... _h_ _e is with Mr. Wilson, so he will probably follow though_ _with my suggestions_ _. Mr. Wilson_ _has second-degree burns on his left shoulder, but has already been to the medical wing_ _..._ “Wing, ha! Get it?” ... _hilarious, sir ..._ ).

So that's alright. Everyone's alright. For the most part, at least. Tony downs his first mug of coffee too quickly, rubbing at the burning in his chest, and roots around for the bottle of — he knows it's somewhere — should just be behind that godawful bran shit Steve likes — there!

Good bottle of whiskey. He slugs a bit into his coffee cup and wrinkles his nose at the aftertaste. Whatever. Tony can afford to ruin a good bottle of whiskey on a shitty night. That's the point of being a superhero, right?

He pours another cup of coffee (adds a bit of whiskey) and sits down at the island in the kitchen. It's dark outside and there are a million streaming lights in the streets below, flowing around the tower like some kind of demented glowing river. Thor's probably seen something like this before, probably has a name for it ...

But here, it's just cars. It's just a hundred thousand other people with lives that don't intersect with Tony's beyond depressing window-gazing in the middle of the night. He supposes it's conceivable that he's saved one of them before, that he has made some kind of nontrivial contribution to the continuation of their existence ...

The thought doesn't really make him feel any better and he pours a little more whiskey into his coffee. Hm. The city is always lonelier than he remembers it. Funny.

“Tony?”

He takes another sip of coffee.

“Tony.”

And, oh, that's a real person talking to him. He turns to see Steve standing in the big arched doorway of the kitchen, barefoot and wearing ratty pyjamas. Tony watched this same person decapitate another human earlier today, and the memory is jarring.

“What are you doing up?” asks Steve.

Tony laughs, which is the only actual answer to that particular question.

“No, I mean,” says Steve, frustrated and blushing a little, which is cute, it's really cute, Tony hates how cute it is. “Shouldn't you be resting? We had a long day.”

Tony raises his mug. “That we most certainly did, captain, my captain.”

Steve's frown deepens a little and he comes to sit beside Tony.

Tony reaches across the island and grabs another mug, pours Steve a shot of whiskey.

Steve takes it silently, and spins it around between his palms. Tony think there might be something ironic about Steve drinking out of an SI mug, somewhere in there, but he hasn't really had the kind of day that's disposed him to cracking jokes about hidden symbolism.

Steve bites his lip, then tilts his head back and swallows the alcohol. (That is something altogether beyond cute, but Tony tries not to think about that too much; ask and ye shall not receive and probably fuck up your team dynamic in the process or whatever.)

“You okay?” asks Tony quietly.

Steve shrugs. “Sure.”

And, really, what else is there to say?

“How's the, uh, sucking gut wound?” asks Tony.

Steve snorts and lifts his shirt, revealing thick bandaging dark with blood in the center.

“See, you're not really acting like it's a big deal, but that looks like the definition of a big deal,” says Tony.

Steve shrugs. “It'll heal.”

“Are your ... organs in order?”

That earns Tony the ghost of a smile. Steve drops his shirt back over the bandaging. “Sam made JARVIS scan me. I think they're okay.”

Tony nods and pours them both another shot.

“How the armour?” asks Steve.

“Fuuucked up,” says Tony. “Early retirement for this suit.” He takes a gulp and adds, “Better it than any of us, though.”

Steve nods and the kitchen slips back into silence. Steve looks completely exhausted, resting his cheek on his palm, propped up on the counter. There are dark circles under his eyes, a fading bruise purpling one side of his mouth, and in the soft light of the kitchen he is so devastatingly beautiful that Tony can't breath.

“I didn't think it would be like this, you know?” says Tony.

Steve blinks up at him. “What would?”

“Being a superhero,” Tony says, and can't help the self-effacing laugh that slips out, because it still sounds ridiculous to say. “Didn't think it would hurt so much.”

Steve reaches out a hand and grabs Tony's where it rests on the counter. When he speaks, his voice is low, a little rough, “I think people forget I was a soldier before I was a superhero. When I woke up and found out the war was over, I thought things would be better. Not much different, though. You get through it with the people you're with. That's all you can do.”

Tony looks down at their linked hands, a tiny bit breathless. “It doesn't escape me how selfish this is, but I'm glad you're one of my people.”

Steve's smile is small, but genuine when he pushes forward on his chair to get his face level with Tony's. If you had asked Tony a minute ago, he would have said that they were just friends, that whatever misguided feelings he harboured for the captain, they were just that: harboured. But in this moment, it feels inevitable, like they've been circling around each other for weeks and sooner or later they had to crash. Tony catches his breath and Steve leans in.

The kiss is gentle, soft, because it's been a long day, and a hard one. Steve cups Tony's jaw with one hand and Tony slides forward to rest his palm on Steve's knee. When they break apart, Steve stares back at Tony with wide, wondrous eyes. Then he stands up, catches Tony's hand in his, and pulls him to his feet.

“Come lay down with me,” he says. “I don't want to be alone tonight.”

Tony clutches Steve's fingers tighter, can't quite find the right words, and follows Steve down the hall, the light dimming in the kitchen behind them, where a thousand bright lives stream through the streets below.

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from "Fireworks" by the Tragically Hip. The song really has nothing to do with this fic, but I was listening to Phantom Power while I was writing, and when I heard those words, they fit perfectly.
> 
> Tony mentions a mathematician who did a lot of drugs -- this is a real person! Look up [Paul Erdős](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s), if you're interested; he's supremely fascinating and extraordinarily brilliant. I might have fudged _which_ drugs he did, but he was definitely doing them. When one of his mathematician friends, Ron Graham, bet him that he couldn't stop doing drugs for a month, Erdős won the bet, but complained that mathematics had been set back a month during the bet.


End file.
